End of April 2012

Whew.  Yesterday was busy, just not much done on the homestead to be.  My job Friday is often half days right now, and another gal and I got loaned out to another section of my department Friday morning to help out.  By lunchtime, we got told to go back, because everybody else's work wasn't looking too good, so we had to go help bring it up to spec, just so we could get out at 4 PM instead of our usual Friday 1 PM, and avoid working Saturday.  We JUST managed, so Saturday was free to work on the homestead cleanup.

Thursday I'd spent quite a bit of time getting the rest of the small bedroom, which will be my office eventually, cleared up so I could get that nasty carpet out of there.  Once I got that done, I dragged the carpet piece out to the front door and shoved it off the deck, then moved all the trash from the living room where it's been being stored for now, into the bedroom so we can close the door on it.  That way it can air out in there and with the door closed, the cats can't get at it once we're up there, assuming that there will still be some stuff in there to haul off or burn.  It makes the living room look much bigger.

But on to Saturday.  Up early, ran errands that could have been run Friday if I'd gotten off work early, and other things we needed to do Saturday.  So it was nearly 2 PM before we got to the property.  Quentin took a look and said WOW at the living room.  Leaves me the kitchen and front bedroom to clean up the next few weeks, yuck.  He tried to start work on the light switches and outlets, but found that while the trailer's a bit oldish:

a - it's copper wire, so no need to rewire the whole place, thank goodness.  That saves a lot of time and effort right there!  Moves up move-in date considerably, too.

b - they are the original switches and outlets, so instead of being hooked onto the side posts, the wires are pushed through the back of the things.  We didn't bring wire cutters/strippers with us, so we had to stop.

c - we need a couple other switches we didn't count on.  One double sideways switch and a couple three-way ones for the hallway.  Cheap, at least, and can be gotten next weekend, as this weekend we have the car insurance due.  Ouch.  (Next weekend is the trailer rent and the property tax on my car, and getting HIM a vehicle!)

We had gotten the camping toilet seat we needed and opted to use the doody bags with it instead of sawdust.  We are going to keep it sitting on top of a bucket with the bag going down inside it to keep it from getting torn up by cats accidentally clawing it or it getting bumped around on the floor. Speaking of floors, we're opting for the cheap fix on the floors.  Half-inch plywood, take the doors down and trim the bottom off a bit so they'll still open, and lay the new plywood on top of the existing floors, including the tiles in bathroom and kitchen.  It'll be a bit goofy, but it will work and will save a ton of time and money and effort on fixing things to be better.  We are all for saving time right now, and effort.  If we can't get him a truck next weekend when he gets his vacation pay, we can always have the 4x8 sheets of plywood cut in half and still fit in the back of my Aveo or whatever car he gets as 4x4 pieces.  Means a lot more nails if we have to do that, but it's whatever works and gets the job done decently.  We'll know more end of the week!

So it was grab the chainsaw and loppers and get out little butts in gear outside.  We'd picked up some OFF at W-M, and while we both generally hate chemicals on the homestead, this is one we approve of.  With all the ticks right now, and me being a major tick magnet, it helps a lot to soak down in the stuff.  We got away with less than 10 ticks on us both total yesterday by the time we left around 6 PM.

He started in on getting the chainsaw started.  Tempermental little thing, that Poulan, after it's been sitting.  I think it likes to work as much as Q does!  While he was doing that and then getting some more brush and downed/dead trees cut down from near the roadside end of the driveway, I started in on the brush pile of side branches we created last week.  Basically, taking the loppers, trimming off the side branches, and going from there to trim the bigger bits into tiny logs at most half an inch in size, as I got small loppers and they can't handle much bigger than that any more than I can.  Anything too small to count as kindling is going into a leaf tip/twig end brush pile for kindling.

By the time we got done, he'd gotten a good patch near the road cleared up.  Partway through, I had to move the car back down the drive toward the road, as the one mostly dead tree he was going to bring down would otherwise have landed right on top of the car.  Our hand signals worked well again, and we got things done.  So now the little tree growing at the base of the big one where I put ...

the house numbers can be seen from the roadside, along with ...

people being able to easily see the "Private Property No Trespassing" sign I put up a while back.  If they can't see that and avoid the place, they have problems, because eventually there will be a .22 or .30-06 to greet unwanted visitors.

This is the area Quentin cleared out yesterday near the road.  FOUR downed trees in that mess, along with a couple of small live ones came out of there.  The live ones had to come down so he could get at the deadwood and clear it out safely.  The one didn't want to come down properly and nearly came down on his head.  We're doing serious woodlot management.  Trees that are dead, dying, diseased, down, falling down, in the way or just plain spindly and not thriving are all coming down and going into the woodpile over time.  There's a lot of good-sized trees (like what I used for the house numbers) on the property, and it seems only fair to them to not make the big, healthy trees compete for resources with the trees that aren't in as good a shape.  Leaves and such are staying on the ground to rot for more food for the trees being left alone.  We aren't clear-cutting the place, but it's getting a bit of serious management done that it hasn't had done ever, I don't think, as we go through the place.

Right now, we're concentrating on clearing out the stuff that needs to come down and out near the driveway, so we can get it looking better.  The rest of the acreage can be done later, as time permits.  The home acre needs cleaning up too much to worry about everything else right now on the woodlot end of things.

This is the area that Quentin cleared last weekend near one of the old phone poles on the left side of the driveway looking up from the road toward the house.  There were seven small trees in there, up to 2 inches around or so, all right next to the drive.  The little darkish bump just right of center is the stump of the mostly dead tree at the back of the cluster.  The driveway is just out of the frame on the right side of the photo, so you can see just how close to the drive those things were, and how much they would get in the way of getting up the driveway.

 The right side of the brush pile started from all the stupid side branches on stuff from last week and this week.

 And here's the left half of it.  The pile hides that nasty trash pile with the mattress in it near the end of the drive. The only real problem is, the darned branches don't stack too well, so they make a huge pile that looks like there's more wood than there is.  I chopped down quite a bit of brush yesterday while Q was chainsawing away, and didn't get a heck of a lot done.  It looks like he got more done than I did, but if my twigs were as big as his logs, we did about the same amount of woodchopping.  My job with these is to clear the side branches off and cut up what I can so the rest of it that's too big for the loppers can be cut up with the chainsaw into smaller pieces.  That means I get to deal with most of this, and that's fun for me.

In passing by the pile at one point, hauling some logs Q'd cut to the woodpile, the brushpile moved. SOMETHING is in there!  It's either a bunny or a lizard, most likely (I'm trying to avoid thinking of snakes), as I've seen several geckos around the place recently.  Cute little things, geckos, and not because of the silly commercials.  I fell in love with geckos while I lived in Tampa several years ago, and had one fall off the ceiling onto my leg.  They are so warm and soft.  Yes, that one held still for a few minutes and let me pet it.  Whatever was in the brushpile just moved around and didn't bother me.  I just kind of blew it off as, ok, something's in there, big deal.

 The wildflowers that have sprung up at the edge of the drive where we cut down that copse last weekend.  One day they weren't there, just green.  Next day, POOF!  Flowers.

These are some purple wildflowers growing across the drive from the white ones above, near the eyesore vehicles.  The Taurus is supposed to be getting hauled out by the landlords today.  That would be nice!

And here's the woodpile.  It's laughable, I know, but it's my very first one, so please be kind in thinking about it.  I figure it's a lot like me.  Odd-shaped, lumpy in spots, and a bit weird, but it's a reflection of my personality.  It's far enough from the house that if something happens, it won't set the house on fire, but close enough for a quick run for wood for the woodstove we're hoping to get in by this winter.

Today is a sit around the rental apartment and relax day, because we both need to rest up for work tomorrow. My day is nearly half over already, being first shift, and I'm BEAT.  This has been a long week, but I can't wait for the next one, as it holds more excitement.  Getting Q a vehicle again, more work on the homestead, and who knows what else will happen.